Farage screwed up by retiring as head of UKIP after the Brexit referendum, assuming his work was done. Not sure what to make of two competing pro-Brexit parties.

_________________________ “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”--Adam Smith, born June 16, 1723

Originally posted by sjtill:Farage screwed up by retiring as head of UKIP after the Brexit referendum, assuming his work was done. Not sure what to make of two competing pro-Brexit parties.

If they had any sense whatsoever, UKIP would dissolve and throw their support behind Farage - who, you’re absolutely correct, never should have stepped down. Sure, he can be a bit abrasive (for a Brit), but they still needed someone with a spine, and that was him.

Anyway, it looks like he’s sitting on at least 15% before he peeled off the disillusioned half of UKIP.

If the remainers want round two, someone needs to be standing in the pass to tell them they can go to hell. Or Brussels.

-Rob

I predict that there will be many suggestions and statements about the law made here, and some of them will be spectacularly wrong. - jhe888

“Tory stalwart Ann Widdecombe hopes to give 'cloth ear' MPs a bloody nose after she sensationally defected to Nigel Farage's Brexit Party today and said her new leader should be on a pedestal with Margaret Thatcher.

The former minister, who was a Tory member for 55 years and appeared on Strictly in 2010, has put retirement on hold because she believes Theresa May and Parliament have betrayed the 17.4million who voted to leave the EU.

Paying tribute to the former UKIP leader's political record she said: 'Nigel Farage has been more successful than any politician other than Margaret Thatcher in my lifetime in getting his agenda through, and he's done this from outside Westminster'.

She has pledged to 'campaign vigorously' for the Brexit Party in the upcoming European elections in May and will stand against Boris Johnson's sister Rachel and Jacob Rees-Mogg's sister Annunziata in the South West.

She told Good Morning Britain: 'I'm on a mission. We need to send a seismic shock to both parties that the electorate have had enough. Just get it done. The cloth ears in Parliament are not hearing us. If we win an overwhelming majority this will send a shock wave and MPs will have to listen. This is not a protest vote, far from it. It is a means of trying to galvanise Westminster into getting this issue dealt with'…”

The 71-year-old has joined Mr Farage's new party to try to get Britain out of the EU - and hopes that more big names will defect from the Tories and Labour.

She said: 'I do hope that more people will follow me, from both parties. When I was 21 I first voted for the Conservative party and I'm 71 now and have done nothing else in between. Leaving has been a total shock for me but I'm sure this is right'.

Miss Widdecombe, who was a prisons minister under John Major, has said Theresa May is the worst Prime Minister since Anthony Eden and in a message for the Tory leader she said: 'Ask yourself what you have been doing for the last three years other than losing our majority, giving into Juncker at every turn, instead of simply turning round to Juncker and saying to him, in a language he can understand, ‘Nous allons, monsieur.’” - French for 'we go'.

Asked if she blames Theresa May for the crisis, she said: 'Oh yes, I think things could have been handled completely differently. It is not just her, Jeremy Corbyn has been playing a very cynical game. In these circumstances, the national good must come first. We are talking now about a prolonged process which is damaging britain and damaging our reputation abroad'.

Miss Widdecombe had been rumoured to be considering leaving the party after she campaigned hard for Brexit and was appalled by the failure to deliver on the Article 50 commitment to leave on March 29.

She said: 'There are millions of people who voted to leave. We have a majority in the country who demanded Brexit and a majority in Parliament who want to remain and will not respect that'.

She continued: 'There is now a huge disillusionment amongst the population with its Parliament'.

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." -- Justice Janice Rogers Brown

"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth."-rduckwor

Farage’s new Brexit Party did even better than the pollsters predicted. Theresa May is toast – Boris Johnson is likely to replace her as PM. Farage doesn’t trust BoJo on Brexit, but BoJo will probably toe the Brexit line after seeing the EU election results.

“Nigel Farage is heading for a landslide victory in the European Parliament elections – and Boris Johnson has raced into a big early lead in the battle to succeed Theresa May as Prime Minister.

They are the main findings of an opinion survey which concluded at midnight on Wednesday after it became clear that Mrs May was on the brink of resigning.

The Survation poll for the Daily Mail shows Mr Farage’s Brexit Party well ahead in the European elections on 31 per cent, trailed by Labour on 23, the Conservatives on 14 and the Lib Dems on 12.

Nearly seven out of ten Tory voters said the reason they did not intend to vote for Mrs May yesterday was because of her failure to deliver Brexit. Calls for her to step down were backed by 57 per cent of Conservatives with 25 per cent against.

Originally posted by c1steve:What is his stance on the population owning firearms? They could use some freedom over there.

Mr Farage is the leader of a political party that currently has NO currency in any kind of government. As such, he is unable to affect the Firearms Act in any way, except to say that maybe he'd like to see it revised somewhat. He would need to be the Prime minister of a political party with a majority to form the government. Here in UK, only ONE party is in power at a time.

Please note that in spite of me trying to convince members here for many years that in general, the UK population doesn't give a rat's ass about shooting, and really could care less if it was totally banned, there is a feeling that ANY politician could just stand up and tear up the old Firearms Act. It really doesn't work like that here. The population has NO say in the forming and documentation of ANY Act of Parliament, and cannot vote an Act in, or out.

Guns really are not part of the everyday landscape here, as they are in the USA, and never have been. Even the 1689 Bill of Rights' mention of bearing arms is only there to ensure that 'Protestant citizens of England to "have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law" and restricted the ability of the English Crown to have a standing army or to interfere with Protestants' right to bear arms "when Papists were both Armed and Imployed ...